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School board closes 5 schools; accepts principal's resignation

Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoFred Squillante | DISPATCHAt a nearly four-hour meeting at East High School, Superintendent Dan Good told the Columbus Board of Education that closing five schools would save the district $10 million.

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On the same day that the Columbus Board of Education decided to spare Independence High School
from the chopping block, that school’s principal resigned, another casualty of the district’s
data-scrubbing
scandal.

Independence will remain open, but Brookhaven will become the first Columbus high school to
close in more than three decades. Last night, the school board approved a revised recommendation to
close five schools at the end of this school year.

Also closing by summer: Monroe Middle School; Arlington Park and Maybury elementary schools; and
Fifth Avenue Elementary, which will see its historic Victorian Village building close, though all
its students will go to another nearby building. The students from the other closed schools will be
redistributed among other buildings.

Independence High, along with Siebert Elementary, will remain open. The two schools were on an
initial seven-building closure list that was revised by Superintendent Dan Good.

The school board approved the list unanimously near the end of a nearly four-hour meeting last
night at East High School, deciding to vote down a last-ditch bid by two board members to save
Maybury on the East Side.

In the end, Good told board members that no one wanted to close schools, but that the move would
save $10 million toward a goal of $50 million in cuts for the next school year. Keeping the
underutilized schools open, he said, would mean program cuts from somewhere.

Board President Gary Baker said, “Closing and consolidating schools is the last option, it’s the
last thing we look at. Staff is turning over every single rock to look for any potential savings in
any area.”

Before the closures, a half-hour private meeting was held to “consider the dismissal or
discipline” of an employee. The board emerged and accepted the resignation of Independence High’s
principal, Christopher Qualls, 46. Qualls has been on paid leave since the district suspended him
in January, on the same day the state auditor issued a blistering report on data-scrubbing by
district officials.

“It’s a way that brings his employment with the district to an end,” Good said after the
meeting. “He’ll be using his available vacation leave and accrued personal leave, and at the
conclusion of that time he’ll separate from the district.”

In relation to the school closings, the board voted to allow the 249 students at Monroe Middle
School on the Near East Side to have preferred treatment in the district’s lottery for next school
year. Monroe is a 100 per-

cent lottery school, meaning parents chose to send their children there rather than neighborhood
schools.

The five buildings to close will be added to the 40 or so that have been shuttered in the past
decade, according to district facilities chief Carole Olshavsky.

Board member W. Shawna Gibbs pointed out that some of the low enrollment that led to the five
buildings closing was because of past district decisions to reassign students away from those
schools.

“We’ve manufactured some of this crisis,” Gibbs said.

Olshavsky responded that declining enrollment districtwide is what drove the entire process.

The district still must cut $40 million from next year’s budget, and Good warned that major
staff reductions are coming.

Baker said district officials are starting to talk about another levy. The district’s last
attempt at a levy, in November, failed overwhelmingly, with almost 70 percent of voters rejecting
it.

“We have begun discussions on when we will next go to the ballot,” Baker said. “Those
discussions are far from concluded at this point.”